In order, to check the evils of enclosures, which were increasing rapidly[51], it was enacted that no grazier might keep a flock of more than 2,000 sheep[52], and by another statute landowners who had abandoned husbandry for sheep-farming since 1515, were ordered to re-erect or repair the houses of husbandry on their lands under penalty of forfeiting half the land to the crown[53]. These two statutes were intended to check the depopulation caused by sheep-farming enclosures, and were therefore popular in intention, but they were naturally resented by the landowners, and rumours spread that both cattle and sheep were to be taxed or confiscated. Other measures with an equally good object had equally unfortunate results. Ever since 1529 the government had been endeavouring to keep down the price of meat. As all prices were rising rapidly during this period, owing to causes beyond the control of legislation, these efforts had exasperated the butchers, while they left the purchasers in a rather worse case than before[54]. In 1534 by one of several statutes dealing with the subject the Lords of the Council were empowered to issue proclamations “from time to time as the case shall require to set and tax reasonable prices of all such kinds of victuals” as “cheese, butter, capons, hens, chickens,” etc.[55] It seems possible that this statute, together with the ineffective regulations which accompanied it, gave rise to the rumour that all poor men were to be prohibited from eating “white meat” unless they paid a tax to the King on every chicken, capon or such-like[56]. But whether the rumour may be traced to this statute or not, it will be seen in what follows that the butchers sought their revenge on the King by taking an active part in the insurrection. From this brief review it is obvious that the government had been pursuing a remarkably daring policy in all departments of national life. In the following chapters an attempt will be made to show how the different classes were affected by this varied mass of legislation, and what their feelings were towards its originators, the King and Thomas Cromwell. CHAPTER II PLOTS AND TOKENS Before the Act dissolving the Lesser Monasteries was passed, in March 1536, the opposition to Henry’s policy was too much broken up by class distinctions to be very formidable; nor did the chief of the conservative nobles ever encourage the popular movement. Henry was able to crush his opponents separately, when a united attack might have shaken even his weight from the throne.